Last week, AT&T shared news of its efforts to vastly improve voice call quality on smartphones, moving forward with its introduction of HD Voice, the carrier's Voice over LTE solution. We knew to expect HD Voice to go live this coming Friday in a number of Midwestern markets, and knew that the first AT&T phone to support the service would be the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini. Today we see AT&T's plans start coming together, as it begins sales of the GS4 mini. Wait a minute; AT&T didn't already have the GS4 mini? Yeah, we were a little confused as well, especially as we remember ...

For all the advancements smartphones have made with high-speed data, audio fidelity, and advanced noise-cancellation, voice calls have been seriously stuck in the past. While our phones blast cellular data out at multiple megabits per second, voice has been constrained by its reliance on older standards – your $700 smartphone handles voice traffic in much the same way as a free-on-contract dumbphone. Progress has been slow to revamp voice, but the promise of voice over LTE – or VoLTE for short – has been looking like one of the most interesting options. This month, AT&T makes big ...

As the leak suggested last month, owners of a Samsung Galaxy S 4 on Sprint's network were able to install the latest official Android 4.4.2 KitKat update on their phones starting February 13. Additionally, Note 3 owners on the Now Network joined the KitKat party on February 20, but now the carrier is publishing further details regarding Samsung phones and the 4.4.2 refresh. If you have a Galaxy Note II, Galaxy S 4 mini, Galaxy S III, Galaxy Mega, or a Galaxy Tab 3 7.0, you shouldn't worry, because Sprint is planning on updating these devices as well. While there is no estimate of when ...

There are plenty of miniature things in this world that are great. Love or hate it, the Mini Cooper S is an incredibly fun car to drive. The iPad mini is a smaller, more affordable version of the iPad Air with just as much power and prowess. Even mini golf is one of my favorite time wasters to partake in when I'm on vacation. If my opinion on "mini" were instead based on the mobile industry's meaning of the word, I would hate practically everything with the mini tag. We all would. Samsung has been doing it for a few years now – throwing the mini tag on the end of its popular Galaxy S ...

HTC's largest screened smartphone to date debuted last month, and ever since we've had our eye on the One Max's arrival in the States. Last week we were talking about Sprint's plans for the phablet, but today we've got Verizon in our sights, learning of the handset's arrival alongside two much more petite Androids. The One Max itself will run Verizon users just about $300 on-contract. While not exactly surprising, given Verizon's penchant towards pricing phablets in this manner, we're still worried that specs like the Snapdragon 600, versus a beefier 800, might make it hard for shoppers to ...

Mid-range smartphones have always been an odd segment of the mobile landscape. The hardware they offer is never top-notch, their designs can look like bloated mutations of sleeker flagship models, and despite more affordable prices than those higher tier handsets, mid-rangers just haven't been a great value for your dollar. And then today we get this new Motorola – the Moto G. It doesn't completely hit the ball out of the park with its hardware, but there are a few stand-out components. The Moto-X-inspired design is liable to get the G confused for the X itself, and those custom ...

The spread of LTE has brought higher data speeds than ever before to our smartphones, yet carriers aren't resting on their laurels; we've already been talking about where things can go from here, like with the LTE-Advanced support that's come to phones like the Galaxy S 4. Today we heard about something a little different from Sprint, with news of its own high-speed LTE service, dubbed Spark. The way Sprint describes it, the key to Spark is its tri-band operation, taking full advantage of Sprint's spectrum holdings and seamlessly transitioning the LTE connection between them for optimal ...

We are on a pint-sized smartphone kick this morning; we just heard about a possible global launch for Sony's Xperia Z1S, and now we're looking at a fun-sized handset from Samsung, with the company confirming plans to bring the Galaxy S 4 mini to the US next month. This shouldn't come as any real shock, as we've recently seen some new GS4 mini leaks addressing such a US launch, with a render of the phone in AT&T livery surfacing, and rumors talking about Sprint also getting its own hands on the phone. Those were only the latest wave of such leaks to arrive, and back in August we saw the ...

You'd wonder how smart a smartwatch really is if you really can't pair it with more devices than just one, and ever since Samsung launched the Galaxy Gear, one of our biggest complaints was that we simply couldn't use it on most of the existing and popular Galaxy smartphones in the market. Android 4.3 is required for the Galaxy Gear to work, and that's rather unfortunate since Samsung hasn't really been famous for timely updates in the last two years. If you wanted to use that Galaxy Gear, you were really forced to buy a Galaxy Note 3 along with it, and some people really only wanted the ...

Miniature versions of top-shelf smartphones have been around for years; Samsung's been keeping up with it for its Galaxy S line, sure, but this year we really saw renewed interest in the practice. That meant a Galaxy S 4 Mini, launched shortly after the GS4 and flanked by other GS4 variants like the Active and Zoom models, as well as an HTC One Mini coming out a little longer after its parent its parent phone arrived. While both suffered from the long-term curse of the mini-phone, showing up with specs that very much failed to align with the larger editions, they still seemed better ...

Even though we've never been real fans of the "mini" concept on any smartphone, our reviews of both the Samsung Galaxy S 4 Mini and even the HTC One Mini have proven quite favorable. Neither of these is as powerful as their larger siblings, which is the real reason for our skepticism when it comes to adopting them as our daily drivers, but still, not everyone is out for flagship specs either. So far only Verizon and AT&T had been the only US carriers that had shown interest in pushing the Galaxy S 4 Mini to their customers. The reason why we believe that this SPH-L520 is a Sprint ...

For the past several weeks, we've been looking at signs here and there of Samsung developing new Galaxy S 4 hardware for release. After all, that LTE-A model for South Korea with the Snapdragon 800 made it clear that the GS4 lineup could still have a few tricks left in it, and we spotted a couple Samsung model numbers that sure felt like they could be similar models for other markets. What we lacked was much in the way of proof. There's still a lot we don't know, but today word arrives that Samsung is indeed releasing new GS4s, though with a focus we weren't quite expecting. Samsung plans ...

Cellular phones started out as monstrous bricks. The first one I saw was being carried by a man in a suit walking through the mall. It had a handset attached to a coiled cord that went down inside a bulky-looking box with a handle and antenna on the top. It was comical. I laughed out loud. And then I stopped in my tracks. "This guy is talking on the phone -- while he's walking through the mall," I thought. It was earth-shaking. Something magical happened next: the possibilities of telephones that didn't need to be tethered to the kitchen wall went rushing through my head. Either that or ...

In the food service industry, when you're a server who's been slammed with too many customers and can't keep up with the demand, you're said to be "in the weeds." On a podcast, that same expression means something quite different. It means you've wandered so far from your intended topic (in this case, mobile technology) that you've found yourself in the far-flung wilderness talking about anything but (in this case, sports cars, British accents, and the adult film industry). But while we do spend a fair amount of time in OT land on today's Pocketnow Weekly, we still manage to get some tech ...

Branding is more important than many people give it credit for. And if you have ever doubted its power or influence, look no further than Samsung for proof that branding does matter. Every Android phone Samsung releases these days bears the Galaxy branding. Every Windows device bears the ATIV branding. Between them, the flagship devices each use the S moniker (i.e.: ATIV S and Galaxy S 4). The Note line signifies any device with an S Pen. The Tab moniker is used to categorize high-end tablets without S Pens. And there are at least a dozen other branding terms Samsung uses for various ...

London was a busy place today with Samsung displaying all of its recently (and fresh) announced devices. The Samsung Galaxy S4 mini, though officially announced via a press release on May 30, was also shown off for some hands-on time. We're basically looking at a smaller version of the Galaxy S 4 flagship. The S4 mini packs a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display with qHD resolution and it is powered by a 1.7GHz dual core processor. There’s 1.5GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage (expandable via microSD card slot), eight-megapixel main shooter, 1.9-megapixel webcam, Android 4.2.2 Jelly ...

Watch today's Pocketnow Daily as we talk about Instagram Video, and what this means to the few that actually use Twitter's Vine service. NVIDIA is next as the company is shaving-off some money from the price-tag of their NVIDIA Shield. Liquid Cooling is next as both Apple and Samsung are reportedly in advanced projects that will allow future iPhones and Samsung Galaxies to offer this technology. Microsoft and Nokia make the headlines next since rumors had them working on a Nokia buy-out weeks ago. We end today's show talking about the Samsung Premiere event and all the Galaxy and ATIV ...

Samsung's Galaxy S 4 Mini, announced late last month, may not pack the raw power of its larger sibling, but for users sick of how big smartphones have been getting, it could be a decent compromise between size and performance. Since then, we picked up some early hints about how the phone might be priced, but we were still wanting for additional launch details. Now there's a theory going around this afternoon that the GS4 Mini could be looking to make a home at Verizon in the States. The evidence for that idea is a little light, but hear us out. The Bluetooth SIG has a new listing up for a ...

Sometimes you get listener mail that asks how the band got together in the first place. Sometimes that happens the day after you drop some nostalgic sentimentalism all over the internet. Sometimes, simultaneously, there are some sweet, juicy rumors and leaks about a top-of-the-line camera phone with what looks like a moon crater on it. Sometimes you gotta put all that into a podcast with the original cadre of Pocketnow 'casters, and see what comes out. All that, plus the longest outtake reel in the history of Pocketnow, more Nokia EOS rumors than you can shake a stick at, the first-ever ...

Disclaimer: since the HTC One Mini is nothing but a rumored phone, with purported looks and specs, this piece is a heavy speculation piece. Please treat it accordingly. ___ Samsung Galaxy S 4 mini vs HTC One Mini is the next big comparison between devices from the two OEMs. We've seen that question being asked over and over in the past (some still ask it today), concerning the two flagships from Samsung and HTC, the Galaxy S 4 and the One; now we're anticipating the question concerning the two miniature versions of the flagships and hopefully help you decide whether you should get the S ...

While we're looking forward to Samsung's June 20 London event to get a hands-on with the company's latest smartphones, one managed to go official a little early, and last week we saw the manufacturer confirm the Galaxy S 4 Mini. In typical fashion, that didn't include sharing details on just how the handset would be priced. As we wait for official word on pricing for various markets, we're getting some early word in a few of them that just might help us get our head around what we'll have to shell out for this new Galaxy. First up, there's a report out of the Ukraine that the GS4 Mini will ...

There's no shortage of new hardware announcements this morning, and we've brought you news of the latest devices from ASUS, Acer, and Samsung. While Samsung went public with its Galaxy Tab 3 hardware, we're probably even more interested in the company's upcoming phones. A whole bunch of them, including the Galaxy Note III, may just have been inadvertently confirmed, thanks to Samsung's Kazakhstani site. The list has since been edited, but just until recently had been including models like the Galaxy Note III, GS4 Mini, and GS4 Zoom. More than just offer names, it also included model ...

While nothing's yet to go official, it sure feels like a lot of the Samsung Galaxy S 4 Active's story has already been revealed. We've seen what sure seems to be the phone in the flesh, checked out some specs, and heard about a possible AT&T launch. Today we add to that tale with the first leaked render of the handset. True enough, it's sporting an AT&T logo, and that date on the screen sure seems to jibe with the theory that we could hear this guy announced on June 20 (going up for sale a day later, perhaps). There's no metallic orange this time around, but a more reserved gray ...

We had an interesting bit of synchronicity crop up in the offices of Pocketnow -and in the recording studios of our weekly tech podcast- this week: we're simultaneously in possession of one of the thinnest, newest tablets in the world - and one of the clunkiest, oldest ones. The interesting part about the latter: it never officially existed. We'll talk about that, plus rumors of yet another mini-Galaxy that ain't bashful about skimping on specs, and a Motorola smartphone that's all-American from design to manufacture. We'll also cover rumors of a newer, flatter iOS 7 as well as updates to ...

No, it turns out we don't have to wait until the London June 20 event. It happened today as the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini just got announced. As you can see from the official press render above, the phone follows Samsung's design guidelines. We won't blame you if you'll find it resembling pretty much any other Android phone out there from Samsung. Still, the S III and S 4 lines are obvious and so is the S 4-esque texture. As far as specs are concerned, the Samsung Galaxy S4 mini GT-I9190 packs 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display with qHD resolution and it is powered by a 1.7GHz dual core ...